Page:Weird Tales Volume 26 Number 03 (1935-09).djvu/21

Lord Mounthead, the millionaire newspaper magnate, lay back in his chair and stared fixedly at the sheet of paper on the desk before him. His portly figure was rigid and motionless. His clean-shaven lips were set in a grim, straight line, and in his narrowed eyes was a look akin to fear.

The room in which he sat, the library of Mounthead Chase, was a thing to gladden the heart and delight the eyes of any connoisseur of antiques. On every side were priceless tapestries, richly wrought armor, painted canvases in whose shadowy depths the fire of long-dead genius still seemed to glow. Yet at that moment the owner of all this luxury and magnificence was unheedful of the beauty around him. His every thought and emotion were centered on the letter that he had just opened:

Below the printed words, by way of a signature, was a neatly drawn Ancient Egyptian hieroglyph representing a human figure with the head of a jackal.

A sudden frown creased Lord Mounthead's forehead, and a gleam of fury shone in his brooding eyes.

"It's blackmail!" he muttered thickly. "By heaven! this fellow, whoever he may be, will find he’s taken on more than he can manage if he tries to put this melodramatic black-hand stuff across me!" He reached over and jabbed his forefinger savagely on the bell-push. "If he starts any killing business he will find it's a game that two can play at!"

In spite of the vehemence with which his lordship voiced this threat, the unexpected and almost noiseless entrance of his private secretary caused him to swing round with a nervous start.

Edwin Lorimer was a youngish man, slight and rather good-looking. His sleek, black hair was brushed straight back from his pale forehead; a tiny mustache, close-clipped until it resembled a thin, dark line, adorned his upper lip.

"Your lordship rang for me?"

"I did." Mounthead tossed the letter across the desk. "What do you make of this rigmarole?"

Lorimer's thin lips curved in a slight smile as he slowly read it through.

"I should say that it was nothing more than a practical joke," he declared with a shrug.

"I wish I could think the same," his employer returned grimly. "But I'm certain that the writer of that letter had something more in his head than a mere desire to be funny. And I'm equally certain that he has more than a smattering of knowledge about Ancient Egypt. Notice the expression, 'the Land of Khem'—that, of course, is the old name for the Valley of the Nile. Moreover, I think I can detect indications that the figure of Anubis, the jackal-headed god, which has been used as a kind of signature, has been drawn with a papyrus-reed pen, such as the ancients used. The draftsmanship is{